at night, after milking was done and we had gone up-stairs to our
room, Halstead said to me, "I suppose you saw that fellow that came to
see me down at the pines this afternoon."

I said yes.

"That was a poor chap I promised to buy some seed-corn for," Halse went
on, hastily. "He came around to get the money; and I'm going to try to
make it up somehow, though I haven't got the money just now. Couldn't
let me have seventy-five cents, could you?"

I said that I could, for I felt relieved to think that the mysterious
person was merely a poor farmer.

Halstead regarded me for some moments. "I wish you would ask Doad and
Nell if they won't lend me a quarter apiece," he said at length. "I can
just make it up, if you would. I hate to ask them myself. But I will
give it back to you in the course of a month.

"I wouldn't say anything to Ad about it," Halstead went on; "Ad don't
like me and I don't want to feel beholden to him for anything."

I replied that I did not feel quite well enough acquainted with Theodora
and Ellen yet, to ask such a favor; but as Halstead seemed to feel hurt
that I hesitated about it, I finally promised to speak to them, although
I disliked the errand.

Next day was Sunday, and after breakfast we all set off, except Ellen
and Gram, to go to the old meeting-house, called the "chapel," three
miles distant, on a road leading westward from the farm. It was a very
hilly road, and we three boys walked; but Theodora and Wealthy rode with
the Old Squire in the two-seated wagon.

I had been accustomed to go to church in a more handsomely furnished
edifice, and the old chapel seemed, at first, very rude to me. It was a
weather-beaten structure, having a high gallery across one end and an
almost equally high pulpit at the other. The floor was bare, and the
box-shaped pews were not many of them provided with cushions. There was
a great clatter of feet when the people came in, and the roof gave back
hollow echoes.

The Old Squire and Gram were nominally Congregationalists, and the old
meeting-house had once belonged to that sect; but becoming reduced in
numbers, and being unable to support a clergyman of that denomination
during the entire year, they had allowed the Methodists, and finally the
Second Adventists, to hold meetings there.

The Old Squire, indeed, was by no means a strict sectarian; he attended
the Methodist service and sometimes, not often, the Adventist. Gram was
more conservative and did